


your self and the magic

by ceserabeau



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-24
Updated: 2014-02-24
Packaged: 2018-01-13 15:42:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1232011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceserabeau/pseuds/ceserabeau
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the garden, there’s a girl, hiding amongst the wisteria, pale face surrounded by the delicate blossoms. Her hair is a fire amongst the purple flowers.<br/>“Come find us, Scott,” she says.<br/>He follows her into the dark.</p>
            </blockquote>





	your self and the magic

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Maya Angelou's _Remembrance_
> 
> Inspired mostly by Alex Stoddard on [Flickr](http://www.flickr.com/photos/alex-stoddard/)

His mother touches his face softly, gently.

“Don’t go into the woods,” she says, “I don’t want you to get lost.”

-

In the garden, there’s a girl, hiding amongst the wisteria, pale face surrounded by the delicate blossoms. Her hair is a fire amongst the purple flowers.

“Come find us, Scott,” she says.

He follows her into the dark.

-

The red string stretches out between the trees, tangled amongst the leaves, wrapped around trunks and branches. It has no direction; it twists back and forth, to and fro, up and down, around and around. He gets trapped in its spider web, caught up in its red snare.

A boy appears. Red hoody over his head, red ball of string in his hands. He tilts his head at the prisoner and Scott can see the moles splattered across his face.

“Are you lost?” he asks.

Scott shakes his head: “no,” he says, “I’m stuck.”

The boy laughs, joyous, and the sound is so familiar. “Let me help you then,” he says and begins to untangle Scott, rewinding the thread back around the ball in his hands. When Scott is back on his feet again, the boy reaches out a hand to shake. “My name is Genim,” he says, “but you’ve always called me Stiles.”

“I’m –”

“Scott. I know.” Stiles smiles, a twitch of his lips. “What are you doing out here?”

“I’m looking for a girl,” Scott tells him, “she has hair the colour of a sunset.”

“Oh,” Stiles says, and the smile shifts into a grin, white teeth showing between pink lips, “you’re looking for our mother.”

“Who?”

“Lydia. Here,” and the boy ties a loop of red around his little finger, “this will lead the way.”

Scott frowns down at it, tight against his skin. “What way is that?”

“The right way.” Stiles turns and begins to walk away. “Watch out for the wolves,” he calls out as he vanishes between the trees.

-

The thread leads him to a boy in a cage, suspended from the trees, grown over with moss. He snarls and fights, caught between wood and wire. When Scott steps into the clearing, he looks up and his eyes glow as blue as the sky.

“Help me,” the boy says, fingers twisting in the wire.

There is no latch, but Scott slips his fingers between the wire and pulls. It begins to tear, untwisting in his hands, until he can peel back the edges. The hole is big, big enough for the boy to climb through. He stands in the clearing and bows low. There’s a tickle in the back of Scott’s mind like he’s maybe seen him before.

“Thank you,” the boy says, “I knew you would help.”

Scott feels confused. “How?”

“You’re Scott,” and he smiles, ethereal in the afternoon light. “I’m Isaac.” He begins to walk away, backing up into the trees, “I’ll see you soon,” and he disappears into the forest’s embrace.

-

Night overtakes him. He sleeps in a bed of leaves, head pillowed on downy moss. When he wakes, the forest is alight around him.

He flees, following the red thread.

-

Smoke clouds around him as the thread guides him deeper. He takes a wrong step and falls down into the darkness, a cave underground, lit by the light of the hole in the forest floor. When he turns around, red eyes glow in the depths of the cave. A man is trapped amongst the roots, wrapped in the tangled wood. His hand reaches out, beckoning, and Scott feels the pull.

“Come a little closer, Scott,” the man says. “I need your help.”

Scott feels fear rise in him, but he can’t place where it comes from. He turns and flees from the cave, clambering up up up until he breaks the surface again. The man’s glowing eyes haunt him as he runs.

-

In the depths of the forests Scott comes across a young man, wrapped in the furs of a wolf. He lounges against a tree, casual, but his eyes are dark, a predator watching his prey. Scott feels the weight of his gaze, heavy like the man in the cave, and shivers from the intimacy in it.

“I was wondering when you’d get here,” the man says, and plucks at the thread so it vibrates with a hum.

He stalks forward, fur rippling as his body moves across the ground. Scott backs up until he’s against a tree, his hands touching the soft mossy trunk.

“Who are you?” he asks.

“Me? I’m Derek.” He leans in to sniff at the air around Scott; “I see you’ve met Peter,” he says.

“I’m looking for –”

“Lydia, I know.” Derek tilts his head at him and smiles, all teeth. “Keep following the string, Scott, it’ll get you there.”

-

He spends his second night in the hollow of a tree. It rains endlessly and he wraps the thread around him like a blanket, a blood-red protection against the cold and the damp. In the morning a mist rises up, clouding the forest floor and he clings to the thread as a guide, stumbling through the shadowed ground.

-

A mirror hangs against an old oak tree, glinting in the sunlight, tied to the trunk with the endless red rope. When he looks into it, a girl looks back.

“You,” she says, voice muffled and faint.

“Are you alright?” he asks.

The girl smiles, cheerful for someone trapped in a mirror. “Kiss me and you’ll see,” she says.

He closes his eyes and presses his lips to the cold glass. When he opens them again the mirror is shattered and he is kissing his own reflection.

“Thank you,” a voice says behind him, and the girl is standing there. She smells like cherry blossoms, familiar and comforting, and her hair is tied with the red string. “I’m Kira.”

He reaches out a hand for her to shake but she merely smiles at him again, her eyes dark in her pale face, and moves off amongst the trees.

-

He reaches a pool, fingers tracing the string until it leads him down to the water’s edge. There is a young woman with her feet in the still blue, tracing rippling shapes. The planes of her face spark something in his memory. As he approaches, she turns and raises a sleek bow, arrow unerringly aimed at his throat.

Isaac appears behind her, his hands pressing softly onto her shoulders. “Allison,” he murmurs, “this is Scott.”

Her face brightens and the bow drops. “Our Scott?”

Scott isn’t entirely sure what she means by that, but he smiles at her. “I’m looking for Lydia,” he says.

Allison opens her arms to him and there’s that pull again, low in his stomach. “We’ll show you the way.”

-

The thread leads to a throne made of twisted wood, roots and branches and trunks rising up out of the earth. Lydia sits upon it, her hair is a flaming halo around her face, and her eyes glow green like the grass, like the leaves. Stiles is curled up at her feet, her hand playing with his hair, and Kira sits alongside him, a fox in her lap. Behind them Derek lurks, a shadow amongst the trees.

“You found me,” she says with a smile.

“I had some help,” and he points to the people around them: Isaac and Allison, Kira, Derek, Stiles. “What am I doing here? How do you know me?”

Lydia rises, graceful as any queen, and comes to him. Her hands are gentle on her face as she smoothes his hair back, presses her fingers to his skin.

“You’re one of us, Scott,” she says, “we’ve been waiting for you to come back to us.”

Her voice makes his mind tremble, pieces shaking free and refitting until images swim up from its depths, familiar faces and endless landscapes and comforting words. When he looks up, the forest glows around them, and his friends glow brighter still.

They are there to catch him when he falls.


End file.
